Statement by Honourable Elleck Nchabeleng, Chairperson of Portfolio Committee on Labour, on recent farm visits
31 Jan 2012
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for attending this media conference.
Before we start with this press briefing, we would like to send our sincere condolences to the families of farmworkers who died in a car accident in Gouda. We would also like to wish those injured a speedy recovery.
Coming back to the main reason of this press conference, last week we embarked on oversight visits to farms in the Western Cape. We visited farms in the following areas: Citrusdal, Robertson, Worcester and Paarl.
The purpose of the visits was to assess how labour inspectors perform their duties in this sector in order to understand their daily challenges and to avoid making unreasonable expectations and recommendations that might be misplaced and impractical.
It is rather unfortunate that a journalist from Cape Times newspaper chose to report in a narrow and ill-formed way regarding our visits. The Cape Times article, published on 25 January 2012, wrongfully suggested that we visited farmers to look for trouble. This is a blatant lie, which we reject with contempt it so duly deserves.
We visited farms to check compliance and also assist those struggling to comply. We are doing this because we know farmers are not administrators. It is therefore proper to state that our visits were based on building cooperation among stakeholders, to ensure that the sector understands the benefits in the proper application of the labour law.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I must say there is willingness to improve conditions of farmworkers. However, these were some glaring challenges in the majority of farms that were visited:
- Housing continues to be a big issue within the sector. While some farmers have tremendously improved accommodation facilities for their workers, some deliberately put their workers in appalling living conditions. For example, in one of the farms in Paarl, workers stay in containers without ventilation and no proper ablution facilities.
- The majority of farms visited do not fully implement proper health and safety regulations, as stipulated by the legislation. Workers are generally not provided with proper safety equipment to minimise the spread of hazardous pesticides to themselves and their immediate families. More concerning though are cases where there's a blatant disregard of workers' safety and no sign of willingness to address this.
- Some farm workers still earn below the minimum wage and continue not to fully enjoy all employee benefits that are stipulated in the law, e.g. sick leave, annual leave, etc.
Way forward:
When the committee undertook this oversight visit, there was never any expectation to come up with a silver bullet to all the challenges that face this sector. But the committee has been able to deduce that some farmers are genuinely committed to improving conditions of farmworkers through providing a decent wage, housing and ensuring adherence to health and safety standards.
The emphasis should be on providing quality inspectorate service instead of setting ambitious numerical targets that do not make positive impact on the vulnerable sectors.
The labour department inspectors will, within 60 days, visit non-compliant farms to check if the situation has been corrected.
Issued by the Parliament of South Africa, January 31 2012
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